


Roots of the Isles

by GoldenGlitzer



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Eda is a concerned Aunt, Friendship, Gen, Gus needs a better Club, Hugs, Insomnia sucks, Light Angst, Light Lumity, Luz is bad at crushes, Reconciliation, Willow Probably Needs a Vacation, Willow and Gus are badasses send tweet, Willow character study, Willow has Anger Issues and Insecurities, Willow needs a circadian rhythm, also 3 chapters in and i have finally figured out how to italicize, also f the american school system, but it's very gradual, maybe au?? but more headcannon, minor edits to previous chapters, surreal stuff, with the exception of minorly described broken arms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:42:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25572283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenGlitzer/pseuds/GoldenGlitzer
Summary: Willow is an observant person. Whether this stemmed from a caring nature or an analytic ability, she didn't know. However, what she did know was that she noticed things easier than others, such as insecurities, subtle traits, hidden items, and even changes in behavior. And usually, she's able to come to pretty accurate conclusions from those observations.She still doesn't know what this recurring dream means, though.(Willow character study, happening mostly in-between episodes and with a lot of the author's personal headcannons/predictions)
Relationships: Amity Blight & Willow, Amity Blight/Luz Noceda, Gus & Willow, Luz Noceda & Willow
Comments: 27
Kudos: 94





	1. The One where Willow Accepts

_~ Storm. Thunder sounded around her, and lightning illuminated the sky, giving her surroundings a greenish glow. Before her, an impossibly high cliff -- no, a leg. The leg connected to a charcoal body, towering past the clouds, and somewhere up there, glowing jade eyes looked down upon her. And she felt anger, her fury rising and rising and rising- ~ ___

____

Willow generally considered herself to be an observant person. Whether this stemmed from a caring nature or an analytic ability, she wasn’t sure. What she did know was that she noticed things that the average person wouldn’t, such as how Luz simultaneously tensed up with nervousness and filled with energy when meeting new people, how Gus would hum a pop song under his breath while he was working on a new spell, or how some of the Beast Keeping students’ hoods shifted whenever they were trying to smuggle the cuter animals of the Bestiary out.

____

Lately, she was noticing how Amity wasn’t being as mean to her anymore.

____

At first, Willow had attributed it to a lack of contact. After all, with Willow being placed in the Plant track, she didn’t have any classes with Amity anymore (and good riddance, in her opinion). The only times they ever saw each other were passing in the halls, or occasionally encountering each other in town (usually with the popular girls surrounding her at all sides, sometimes even making biting remarks towards Willow).

____

However, starting after the most recent Covention, Willow noticed that even the existing contact had started to lose it’s hostility. Amity’s glares at her whenever they crossed paths in school began to lose their usual anger, until it was entirely gone (and was then replaced by something resembling sadness? Willow didn’t like to think about that too much). As much as Willow nearly lost it when Amity made the remark towards her while prepping for the Moonlight Conjuring, she had to admit that a secondary purpose of it was to get her posse away from Willow (even if she would have _much preferred_ Amity simply say nothing). And even those sorts of situations had started to disappear, as, after a certain point, Willow saw Amity in town with her friends less, and more with older green-haired individuals that she assumed were her siblings (she vaguely remembers seeing them with Gus sometimes).

____

And when Amity gives her the slightest of nods as they pass each other in Hexide’s hallways, it takes all of Willow’s self-control to keep her from looking back to see if Amity had suffered a traumatic head injury.

____

So there it is; while Amity might not necessarily be trying to be nicer, she is certainly trying to be less mean towards Willow. Change that Willow had never expected in a million years, all happening over the span of a few weeks. And Willow only knew one force of chaos and change strong enough to cause this.

____

In retrospect, she should’ve known that Luz was somehow involved with Amity. It was clear that there was more going on at the Covention between the two than simple opposition and rivalry, even if Luz never talked much about what happened after she followed Amity offstage (Unfortunately, Willow was too distracted by the _incredibly awesome witches duel_ between their mentors to follow Luz.) and on the rare occasion that Amity was brought up in conversation, Luz was almost imperceptibly withdrawn and nervous. It only requires Willow to put two and two together, and she has a rough idea of what’s been happening.

____

And her first reaction is rage. After all, this is a betrayal, isn’t it? One of her best friends, hanging out with her worst enemy (although, a traitorous part of her mind reminds her, that wasn’t always the case). And the possibility that Luz could do the same thing Amity did, leave her behind, and maybe even rub it in her face, fills her with primal anger. She lets the rage fester in her body throughout the school day, feeling it coil and spread as magical power just under the surface of her skin, before storming out of Hexide and immediately into the woods. 

____

And she unleashes it all. She almost feels the rage explode out of her, tendrils of her wrath becoming actual vines and roots that lash out at anything within the relative vicinity. She doesn’t care much; nobody’s around, and right now she _wants_ to rampage, to tear the world apart because _how dare it_. She feels her consciousness slip, and falls back into the world in her dreams, the primordial green glow and the towering titan and the eyes and the _fury-_

____

She snaps back to her senses and almost immediately feels guilt. While she’s certain there are trained witches out there that could cause more destruction, she’s created a small wasteland in under a minute, with broken trees strewn across the ground and caught up in a mess of thorny vines. Had any creature or person been in the vicinity, they would've been killed, and the thought of that makes Willow sick to her stomach. She hopes she’ll never have to use her magic for that purpose.

____

As Willow tries to repair some of the damage she caused (the area is healthier by the end of it, but it’s not really the same as before), she reasons out her revelation. Yes, there’s still anger there, and a bit of insecurity (only a smidge, she tells herself), but she’s not as overwhelmingly wrathful as before. She knows that Luz isn’t really like any of them; she’s a dreamer, passion and energy incarnate that has arrived in a new world and is determined to make it work for her. She likes to see the best in others, and it’s not unreasonable to think that she’s found some qualities in Amity that she’s found redeeming (what those could possibly be, Willow has no clue). Willow also knows that Luz cares deeply about her too, and as such, it’s unlikely that she would simply abandon her like that (despite what certain parts of her mind keep thinking).

____

Ultimately, Willow is confused, and decides that the only way she’s going to figure it out is to get the truth out of Luz. Once home, she sends a letter to Luz, asking her to meet in the marketplace tomorrow, finishes her schoolwork, and tucks in for another day. The same dream as the last few nights happens again, and Willow begins to wonder if this is going to be a thing for a while. The next day, school is fairly uneventful, although Principal Bump does pull her aside at the beginning. Apparently having become aware of her outburst, he lets her off with a light scolding, but he does say he will be talking to her later, which leaves Willow slightly scared and intrigued.

____

When she and Gus pass Amity in the hallways, Amity offers her a subtle nod again. Willow does not grant her a response, and when Gus turns to her and asks “What was that about?” she simply shrugs (it’s nice to know that he noticed too, though).

____

Finally, school is out and, after bidding Gus goodbye (they would be practicing combo spells later in the day, of course), she heads to the marketplace. Soon enough, Luz arrives there, shouting out her usual energetic greetings with the world’s brightest smile on her face (later, when Willow learns that Luz’s first name means “light” in the human language of Spanish, she can’t say she’s entirely surprised). Still, Willow came here for a purpose, and she interrupts Luz’s happy march towards her with a simple “We need to talk.”

____

“Oh! Um, okay!” Luz manages to get out, and Willow can tell that, behind the bubbly exterior, there is a hint of panic in her eyes (perhaps she’s been expecting this conversation, Willow muses).

____

“You and Amity have been hanging out together.”

____

And _there_ was the full panic.

____

Luz fumbles with her answer, uttering a series of “ums” and “errs” and “wells”. Willow adores Luz, and finds that she has so many traits that make her a good friend and a great person; however, Willow knows that, when Luz is introduced to an uncomfortable situation that she isn’t used to, she can be dishonest in an attempt to please the people around her. Willow hopes to Belos that she isn’t this time.

____

With a hallowed breath, Luz admits “Yes, I have.” Confirmation. For some reason, it doesn’t mean as much to Willow as she thought it would. “I didn’t mean to, though! We just kept bumping into each other, and running into danger together, and I kept learning things about her, and-” she pauses, with a defeated sigh. “I’m sorry, Willow. I saw how she’s treated you, and that isn’t right. It wasn’t right of me to betray your trust either. I can stop talking with her, if you want. Or if it’s too much already, you don’t have to be friends with me anymore.”

____

It hadn’t occurred to Willow that those were options, but now that she thought about it, she was within her rights to decide on at least the last one (and the first one was still understandable, if also very unethical), and from Luz’s body language and the way she had offered the choices, she would genuinely swear to both. However, she could also tell that Luz’s heart would absolutely shatter if Willow accepted either of those options, and when she tried to visualize herself accepting them, all she could think of was the cold fall day when she realized her and Amity were no longer friends. She knew that pain. Did she want Luz to know that pain too?

____

“No,” she decides. “You haven’t betrayed me, Luz.” She sees Luz visibly untense, and almost feels an aura of gratitude radiating off of her. “I’m just curious about it.”

____

She’s able to get Luz to talk about her various encounters with Amity, the most significant of which involving life-or-death situations. While at this point Willow has accepted that Luz was cursed to have danger follow her almost anywhere, she was still fairly certain her bubbly friend was going to give her grey hairs by the time she was twenty. She listened as Luz told her about Amity’s more hidden traits; her volunteer work at the Library, her love of the Azura series (Willow always considered the books a bit too unrealistic for her tastes), her older siblings who kinda bullied her (but also don’t, sometimes. “It’s complicated,” Luz says, and Willow lets it be at that for now), and even her bravery when protecting Luz or rescuing her siblings. It occurs to Willow that she never really noticed many of these things about Amity, even before they drifted apart. It somewhat disturbed Willow to consider that, while she knew Amity for almost her whole life, she didn’t “know” her.

____

“And yeah, now we’re setting up a Secret Azura Book Club together, and we’re going to have our first meetings once the next semester begins!” Luz declares, and Willow can tell from the far-away look on her face and her subtle blush that Luz’s draw towards Amity isn’t exactly the desire for platonic friendship. But that’s a whole other can of worms to get into that Willow barely understands as is, so she doesn’t make a comment. Yet.

____

Besides, Willow has one more question to ask. “So, did you say anything to her about treating me better?”

____

Luz’s eyebrows twitch up a bit in surprise. “No, I haven’t. I should totally do that though! It’s been a conversation I’ve been avoiding since, y’know, awkward horrible history and all that, but I know it’s something we can’t avoid-”

____

“No, don’t.” Willow cuts in. While there’s not a lot that she knows for sure right now, she does know that she’s not ready for that conversation. “I’ve just been… noticing some things.”

____

Willow then proceeds to describe to Luz what she’s noticed of Amity’s recent behavior. Luz’s eyes practically glow with something akin to pride when she hears that the insults have stopped and Amity has acknowledged Willow’s presence in a non-antagonistic way, but she ultimately says “I know that, when I first got here, I expected things to be very simple, and for transformations to be very easy. I was wrong on both fronts.” Luz pauses to chuckle and sigh to herself, and then continues “I guess, just take it at your own pace. I’m glad Amity’s improving, but no one’s saying you have to make any sort of decision about this.”

____

From there, the conversation switches back to more comfortable topics, as Willow talks about school and her improvement with Gus, and Luz talks about some of her (mis)adventures with Eda and King (from which Willow gathers two things: that she should be worried about Boscha potentially targeting Luz, and that Luz knows a lot about the writing process). Luz even shows off her new ice glyph, which Willow finds very cool, pun totally intended. Once it’s time to depart, Willow gives Luz an extra warm hug and assures her that she _is_ indeed a good friend, and then she heads off to train with Gus.

____

Inevitably, Willow’s mind is drawn back to the subject of Amity. Was she willing to admit that the green-haired-witch wasn’t a nightmare-spawn of evil? Maybe. Was she willing to admit that Amity was improving? Yes. Was she ready to forgive her?

____

...No. There was too much to sort through right now, too many bad memories and good (lukewarm? Willow was still unsure) revelations, too much confusion and hurt and _fury-_

____

So yeah, things were still confusing in the Mysterious Case of Amity Blight, and Willow had a feeling that answers weren’t going to come easily (especially with whatever has been going on with her dreams). But still, if Amity was willing to work on turning herself around, then Willow was willing to keep thinking about this too. 

____

And the next time she and Amity encountered each other in the hallway, and Amity nodded to her again (the nods were getting less and less subtle, as if Amity was getting more and more comfortable with the idea of giving them), Willow graced her with a subtle nod of her own.

____

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first fanfiction, but don't feel afraid to go ham with constructive criticism (I would like some pointers on multi-sentence parenthesis).
> 
> I find Willow to be a very interesting character to write about, and her more-or-less unique way to connect with magic fascinates me (in case there is any confusion, that's what the dream paragraph is about. It's based on a headcannon I have, and more info will be revealed as we go along.) I hope to write more chapters soon, but that just depends on how much energy I have in the given day. I have a rough idea as for what I want the other chapters to be about, though, and I imagine that I'll get chapter 2 out before Understanding Willow (chapter 3 would depend greatly on details from that episode, so I'll wait on writing it for now).


	2. The One where Willow Fights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Upon seeing Gus’ simultaneously sad, angry, and resolute face as he marched over to her after school, she was able to come to the conclusion that today was going to be a thing.
> 
> (Set a few days before Episode 13)

_~ Storm. Thunder and lightning crashing around her like waves, the titan before her standing tall against it all, it’s glowing jade eyes in the clouds. She found herself furious against those eyes, and her fury coiled out from her in tendrils of emerald and darkness. These outbursts of power created jungles in their wake, birthing and consuming life as they ascended. Willow found herself being consumed as she rose too, the vines tasting her soul and taking more and more as she ascended higher and higher and higher- ~_

Willow generally considered herself to be an observant person. It was a helpful trait to have, especially when paired with her ability to come to accurate conclusions from those observations. Noticing the sound of a breaking glass and the gags of other students around the corner helped her come to the conclusion that she should bolt to the nearest room before the gas cloud from the stale potion rolled over her hallway, and noticing the slightest smell of iron in the air helped her come to the conclusion that she should get her plants inside and close the shutters before the gorenado struck in full force.

And upon seeing Gus’ simultaneously sad, angry, and resolute face as he marched over to her after school, she was able to come to the conclusion that today was going to be a thing.

In fairness, the day was already kinda bad to begin with. The dream was getting more and more disturbing, and it was sometimes costing Willow her sleep. As such, she accidentally slept in for a bit, and ended up rushing to school a bit late. Once she got there, she ran into Boscha, of all people, who made a smug comment about “Half-a-Witch being Half-an-Hour Late,” which Willow fumed over for a good portion of the day (that’s _not her name,_ after all). Furthermore, while surfing Penstagram during a bathroom break, she found that the pinkette had recently posted with a subtly anti-human caption beneath (one of the few of Boscha’s posts that Amity didn’t reflexively heart, Willow noticed), that, when combined with what Luz had said about her run-in with Boscha in the marketplace, had Willow seriously concerned.

So yeah, she was already in a bad mood, and this might as well happen too.

“I need your help.” Gus proclaims once he reaches her.

“Okay.” Willow responds, already mentally preparing herself for a high-stress adventure.

“So, there’s sort of a situation in the Human Appreciation Society. One of the human weapons has gone missing, and I know that I was the last one with it but I know that I didn’t misplace it, but Mattholomule’s threatening to kick me out whichiskindaironicbutI _reallydon’twanttobekickedoutand-_ ”

“Ok,” Willow interjects, “you want my help to find it?”

“Yeah, yeah that’d be swell! I also found this note, which after a bit of examining, seems to say that the weapon is somewhere in the Doom Dump!” Gus announces, holding up to Willow’s face what is quite possibly the worst poetry she’s ever seen, complete with what looked to be intentionally horrible penmanship.

Willow didn’t know Mattholomule first-hand like Gus, but from what she could glean, the Construction Coven student was willing to endanger other people's lives for power or just simple drama, and she knew that he had bad blood with Gus. The Doom Dump was a place known to be very dangerous, housing old magical traps and ruffians. And to think that an intentionally illegible letter told Gus to go there right after Mattholomule threatened to kick him out…

“This is a setup,” Willow concludes. “There is no chance that this isn’t a setup.”

“Oh c’mon! We don’t know that for sure and--well--if I don’t find it, he’ll kick me out, and-”

“Then just leave. He’s not going to make it any easier for you.” In retrospect, the statement comes out harsher than what Willow wanted, and Gus looks at her like she just grew another head.

“What? No, nonono, no. Besides, it’s a dangerous human weapon, and we can't just let any ol’ schmoe grab it!”

Willow wants to argue more against this horrible idea, but she gets the feeling that Gus really won’t change his mind anytime soon, and she certainly wasn’t going to let him rush into the Doom Dump on his own. Thus, she relents, and the two are off. After attempting to explain what the weapon looked like to Willow (a cube, made of many squares of different colors), Gus goes silent, probably brooding over the club. Which is fine by Willow, as she also has plenty to brood about for the day. However, the silent brooding becomes too consuming, too tense, and she feels the need to get Gus to smile.

“So, have you come up with any new spell ideas?” Always a topic that gets Gus going. His face lights up, and he begins to ramble about ideas for various spells, some aesthetic (hair that glows), some practical (fiber manipulation to trap enemies in their clothes), and some teamwork based (giving a plant buff arms, which Willow thinks is the best idea since sliced magma bread). Time passes like nothing while he goes on, and soon enough they are at the gates to the Doom Dump.

While the Doom Dump has been out of official use even since the Emperor’s Coven took authority over collecting magical waste, it was still home to several less scrupulous individuals, looking for whatever hidden treasures that they could find, and ready to steal from others when they got the chance. Willow had heard that some students made it a pastime to go in there and find little trinkets, and most came out half-torched (of course, Willow had never participated in these runs, as unlike _some people_ , she had the common sense not to go into a place called the _Doom Dump_ ).

Gus draws a circle above the duo, and their physical forms seemingly vanish without a trace, going invisible. 

“Ok, the note says it should be somewhere in the middle of the dump.” Gus whispers.

“I’m really not sure how you translated anything from something that bad.”

“It’s all in the subtext.”

And so they begin to sneak through the Dump, avoiding anything that resembles fire or spike traps (if there was one good thing that came from the fiasco that was Luz vs. Amity at the Covention, it was that Willow and Gus now knew what magical traps looked like). Willow generally steers them away from any noise, not too keen on stumbling into a bandit camp, invisible or not. The trash heaps around them are filled with broken wands, still glowing with magical energy, and precariously placed half-rotten houses. Willow feels a chill run up her spine, perhaps the dangerous aura of this place triggering her fight-or-flight instincts.

Eventually, they reach the middle of the dump: a wide circle, with tall hills of rubble dotting the rim. Apparently, most of the more valuable magical items/trash had been placed here, and over the years it had been rendered barren, the side hills filled with anything undesirable to even the most desperate of criminals. After a bit of deliberation (and more stress on Willow’s part), the two agree to drop the invisibility spell and start looking through the side hills; the likelihood of bandits being nearby is low, given how barren the middle was, and the invisibility spell was short-range, making it harder to cover ground in a timely fashion. 

As Gus dives into one of the piles, Willow carefully sorts through another. Tens of minutes pass, and Willow still has no luck. She barely even knows what it is they’re supposed to look for (Gus never specified how big the cube was, or what colors were on the squares), and for all she knows, she could’ve missed it in the rubbish heaps she’s already looked though. All the while, she can’t shake the feeling of being watched, her nerves constantly on edge. Looking for a stupid human weapon in a stupid wasteland of a dump. Doing Mattholomule’s stupid busywork, in what was clearly a stupid setup.

This was stupid. She feels stupid. She feels _useless. Useless Half-a-Witch. ~She felt **furious-**_

“Found it!” Willow hears from across the circle. Gus runs towards her, holding his arm outwards to reveal a--oh, it’s a rubik's cube. Willow remembered Luz saying something about them in their last meeting. What was it again…

Her entire body goes cold, and her hair stands up. Something is wrong. These hills, they’re placed in the perfects spots for an-

“AMBUSH!” a shrieking voice announces, and six chains fly up from one of the mounds. Quickly, Willow dives into Gus and knocks them both out of the way, the chains coiling around the spot they had been in moments ago.

Picking herself up off the ground, Willow turns to see her assailant on top of the mound the chains had come from. A grey, lanky lizardman, with a cloak of red and blue (split halfway down the middle. A terrible fashion choice, from Willow’s point of view) and a face of confusion as he stares at his missed quarry.

“You giraffe, don’t announce your attack before you make it!” a deeper voice reprimands, and a larger figure marches into view next to the lizardman. A burly werecat, with an orange vest, a pale horn, and four eyes, all trained on the rubik’s cube.

“Hey!” Gus shouts, his eyes betraying his terror. “We don’t have any magic stuff on us, so go loot someone else!”

“Oh, we have many magical kick-knacks back at camp. Too many.” The werecat’s mouth pulls up into a spirk, revealing conical fangs. “In fact, I think we need a bit of a _human_ touch to liven it up.” Gus visibly blanches.

“So, I’ll make you a deal. Give us the weapon, and-”

“Hol’up,” the lizardman cuts in, seemingly finally figuring out what he was so baffled by earlier. “Are these kids? HA!” he lets out perhaps the most annoying chortle Willow has ever heard. “Here I was thinkin’ we’d be going up against actual threats, not a couple o’ grade runts!” The lizardman continues to chortle, his partner giving him a withering glare. Willow growls a bit in indignation, but otherwise does not give in to the taunt.

“...Anyways,” the werecat continues. “Give us the weapon, and we’ll spare you any further trouble.”

Willow turns to Gus, watching as he looks at the cube, his expression turning from one of fear to resolution.

“No. I’m not letting a weapon as dangerous as this fall into the wrong hands!” Gus gets into a battle stance, as does Willow. The werecat sighs, growls, and procures two wooden staffs from behind him.

“Very well. Don’t say I didn’t warn y-”

Before he can finish his sentence, Willow and Gus complete a dual spell circle. Vines appear in the air surrounding the bandits, racing towards them. The two barely jump out of the way in time, speeding towards the students. The werecat lands on the ground first, and throws one of the staffs towards Willow. Gus jumps in front and catches the staff with a spell circle, which he then stretches into five, throwing clones of the staff back at the bandits. The werecat is able to deflect two, but one of them strikes the lizardman in the cheek.

The werecat jumps into the air, remaining staff held above his head, and brings it down hard to strike Gus. But before his attack can land, Willow blocks it with a _Dracula’s Demise_ (known for its shock-absorbent bulb and garlicky aroma), and with her other hand summons a vine to ensnare him. In the nick of time, a chain wraps around the werecat’s waist and pulls him to the edge of the circle, where the lizardman now is.

This time, Willow and Gus go on the offensive. Willow summons several _Sticky Sages_ (known for their ability to coat whatever their leaves touch in a strong adhesive sap), and Gus sends them flying forward with a spell of his own. With several twitches of his wrist, the lizardman sends his chains into a spiral, knocking away all the plants, before racing towards the students.

However, Willow and Gus are prepared, with a joint spell prepared behind their backs. They split apart, and a giant plant arm strikes the lizardman with a large illusionist’s mirror, sending him spiralling into the sky. Willow wastes no time, grabbing the two staffs that the werecat blocked and driving them into the ground. She feels them turn into roots just beneath the surface, and she guides them until they are upon the werecat’s feet, trapping him in place. Gus then summons seven clones, who all rush up to the werecat and start lassoing him with blue ropes of energy. The werecat roars, and struggles against the bindings, but the clones struggle even harder to keep him contained, and Willow’s roots rise higher and higher up his body, trapping him in place.

Victory seems nigh. And then an orange gem falls to the ground.

The resulting explosion rocks the arena, rattling a few of the trash hills, and sending Willow and Gus to opposite sides of the circle. There’s a horrible ringing in Willow’s ears, and for a moment she can barely feel the world around her. Eventually, her senses return to her, and she looks across the circle to see Gus and his clones being beset by the werecat, just barely avoiding each furious swing. As she rises to go help him, the lizardman lands before her, chains splayed behind him like a coat.

“You thought that was an attack?” he jeers, his eyes wild and murderous. “I’ve met midgets ‘oo hit harder!” His chortling fires up the rage inside Willow, and she attacks, sending a Teething Terror (known for its ability to cut through steel) towards him. With a simple flick of his wrists, the lizardman’s chains wrap around the stem and uproot it, throwing it across one of the trash hills. Willow then makes a dash to go help Gus, but is struck aside by one of the chains, tumbling across the ground.

“Do all the runts come this weak nowadays? O’ did I just luck out and find the _weakest_?”

Willow roars, sending Sticky Sages flying towards the lizardman, but he just parries the attacks with two chains, before rushing in to strike. Willow barely dodges and parries swipe after swipe of the chains, unable to either help Gus or go on the offensive ( _useless useless useless_ ). The lizardman doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon, continuing to lob insults while his strikes get closer and closer and closer and Willow gets angrier and angrier and furious-

 _~ **Power.** ~_ Willow glows emerald, and she strikes out. In a split second, massive vines burst from the ground and ram into the lizardman. Before he can react, the vines coil around his right arm and his torso, pushing the chains out of his hands. The lizardman struggles within nature’s grip, but the vines hold firm, and begin to tighten around him, glowing with power. For Willow, the world ceases to exist; only the roots, their prey, the storm, and the titan.

She shouldn’t do this. _~ She needs this. ~_

“Willow!”

She isn’t a killer. _~ She isn’t a weak Half-a-WItch. ~_

“Willow!”

She can walk away from this. _~ **There is no walking away from destiny.** ~_

“WILLOW!”

_~ **The vines tasting her soul and taking more and more as she ascended higher and higher and higher-** ~_

A sharp _crunch_ and a blood-curdling scream pulls her back to reality.

The vines immediately release and fall to the ground with the lizardman, while Willow stares in horror at what she has done. The lizardman groans on top of the vine pile, clutching his right arm in pain. Gus and the werecat have stopped fighting, staring at the scene in front of them with varying levels of horror. The lizardman fumbles with his cloak, grabbing a dark blue pendant from one of its many pockets, and presses it on the broken arm. A dull hum can be heard emanating from the pendant, and the lizardman calms down, flexes his now fully functional right arm, and then falls on his face, unconscious.

There is a pause, as the werecat looks to Willow, then to his downed partner, then to Gus, and finally to the cube by his feet, detached from Gus’ person at some point during the fight. With glee in his four eyes, he picks it up, and then puts two fingers to his horn, which begins to glow yellow. In a blink, he shimmers out of reality, before suddenly re-appearing behind Gus, ready to strike with the cube.

“I WARNED YOU, BRAT! NOW FACE THE POWER OF HUMAN WEAPONRY!” The attack comes all to soon, and Willow is rendered helpless except to watch as the cube-

Shatters into many smaller cubes upon hitting Gus’ chest?

It is then that Willow remembers what Luz had said about rubik's cubes.

(“Yeah, they’re these little puzzle things that can get kinda frustrating sometimes. I wouldn’t advise throwing them though! They’re very fragile, and throwing them against a wall will shatter them. Heh, not that I would know from personal experience or anything…”)

By Belos, she was going to die of the sheer stress her friends kept putting her through.

The werecat looks down at the pieces with an expression of terror, lets out a small “..oh.” before high-tailing it away like a madman. He only makes it five paces before one of Gus’ clones trips him, and Willow ties him up with her vines (she makes sure only to tie his wrists and ankles, still reeling from what had just happened).

Willow and Gus get to work interrogating the werecat for who tipped him off about the human artifact. He denies knowing of anyone, only stating that a note suddenly appeared in camp that told them where it was, stashed in his partner’s coat. Approaching the unconscious lizardman, Willow files through his coat (she hears a sleepy groan come from his person, to her great relief) and finds a note almost identical to the one Gus found, albeit slightly better worded. Confirmation that this was a setup, but still nothing to explicitly confirm Mattholomule being the instigator. She has Gus check for any more evidence on the paper, but all the fingerprints that don’t belong to the bandits are untraceable (Willow vaguely remembers hearing about a potion that can scramble fingerprints).

At this point, Willow and Gus both decide to abandon the mission (they leave the bandits there. Normal authority doesn’t stretch into the Doom Dump, and it will be a while until the criminals are able to free themselves). Exiting the Doom Dump, the two head back into town. For the first time in a while, Gus’ expression is unreadable by Willow, his eyes trained on the ground. The events of the fight replay over and over again in her mind. She doesn’t like this. Losing control. Nearly killing someone. Scaring Gus.

She doesn’t like it one bit.

“Hey,” she turns to Gus, stopping them both in their tracks. “I’m sorry about what happened back there. That isn’t who I want to be, and I’m working hard on controlling my powers so that things like that don’t happen.” She quietly sighs, before continuing. “I want you to know that I would never hurt you. Friends don’t hurt other friends.”

Gus stars at Willow for a moment, before diving in for a hug. “I know,” he says into her shoulder, while she returns the hug. “I know you.” He then releases his hold, his expression now one of sadness. “But that isn’t the only thing that’s on my mind.” Willow gestures for him to continue.

“The cube broke to bits, so now I have to come back empty handed, and Mattholomule’s gonna kick me out, and everyone will be so mad at me!” He visibly deflates, before continuing. “I don’t really care about Mattholomule, but I do care about the other members, and I want to impress them, I want them to like me. I can’t have that if I’m out of the Human Appreciation Society.”

Willow puts a supportive hand on his shoulder. “Gus, I know this came out wrong earlier, but I stand by what I said about leaving the Society. This won’t be the last time he’s going to put you in harm’s way, and I really don’t think anything’s worth that. Besides, you’re better at making friends than you think, and there are more clubs in Hexide than that one.”

Gus grumbles a little “It’s not a club, it’s a Society,” but otherwise smiles and nods a bit.

“I know you, you’ll do great.”

And so they continue on their way, Gus spitballing ideas for clubs off of Willow (“How about the Ancient Magic Society? Ooh, or maybe the Demon Association? I’d call it the D.A. for short.”). Eventually, they arrive at his place, and Gus runs up to the door, before looking back at Willow.

“One more thing. You’re not weak. Or useless. Or Half-a-Witch. You’re Willow, and Willow is cool.” He then turns and enters his house. Willow continues down the road, a smile framing her face. Sure, a few words from a friend may not single-handedly quell years of built-up insecurity, but they sure help her keep moving forwards.

One foot in front of the other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you believe that this was at first going to be a slice of life chapter? And that I was going to give Willow a love interest?
> 
> I was originally going to have this be a "snapshots across a broad range of time" chapter. I knew Gus was going to feature more than he did last chapter, but I was originally planning on it being "Gus feels insecure about being young, so Willow tries to cheer him up with ice cream". Kinda glad that it changed the way that it did.
> 
> Anyways, I was originally going to have Croissant Stand User (or whatever her real name is) be a bit of a cute, flirtatious rival for Willow. I saw "The First Day", got to the scene where they're duking it out, thought "ooh she's really cool", then "there's got to be a story behind this", then "oh but she looks really nice, they probably don't hate each other", and then "ooh what if it was a friendly Gay Rivalry™?". Honestly, had we known more about Croissant Stand User, I would've included her, but at the moment of writing we don't know much about her, and I would pretty much have had to make her an OC, which isn't something I'm really comfortable writing as a love interest to a canonically personified character.
> 
> And then I decided to give Gus a more active role in the story, and structured it around an adventure (kinda what I would expect a Willow and Gus plot that doesn't revolve around Luz to go), and then gave it my own dark twist that relates to the overarching plot of this fic (also, for those worried that I'm making Willow too violent, this is as much damage as she ever does to someone in the narrative I have planned).
> 
> Speaking of overarching plots, I more or less finished my chapter roadmap! 6 chapters! While I don't feel like explicitly stating what the content will be for each (plus, the content might change depending on what happens in "Understanding Willow", I do feel like revealing these tidbits:  
> -Chapter 3 happens in the direct aftermath of "Understanding Willow". While I'm waiting on the episode to dictate what I write, this will be the last chapter where I really care about waiting for canon. This might also be the shortest chapter.  
> -Chapter 4 happens sometime around "Enchanting Grom Fright" but won't focus on the content of that episode.  
> -Chapter 5 happens after "Wing it Like Witches" and references what I predict will happen in that episode. Kind of a calm-before-the-storm chapter.  
> -Chapter 6 is more or less my prediction/desire for "Young Blood, Old Souls".
> 
> Also, this chapter was harder to get into than the previous one ("Willow and Gus go on a treasure hunt" is a less compelling story prompt than "Willow reflects on her and other's relationships with Amity Blight"), but I was really into writing the fight scene, and I hope you all enjoyed it too!!!


	3. The One where Willow Learns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As she became less and less Willow, she became more and more angry. But this wasn’t the consuming anger in her dreams that gave her power and vision of titans; this was simple burning anger. Resentment. _Amity._
> 
> (deals with the aftermath of Episode 15, as well as a brief recap of it)

_~ Storm. Thunder. Lightning. Titan. **Power.** As rage coursed through her, rising through her veins like the jungles rose towards those glowing jade eyes, she felt this power consume her physical body, eating away at her until she was but a silhouette or herself, emerald tendrils of power snaking through her shadowed form. All the while she flew at breakneck pace up the titan, climbing higher and higher as the jungle grew stronger and stronger and those glowing jade eyes grew dimmer and dimmer and dimmer- ~_

Willow generally considered herself to be an observant person. She liked this about herself; she liked being able to find clues about things around her, or even better, other people around her, to feel the “aha!” moment when she figured them out. Additionally. Willow could then use her revelations to help herself or, even better, help those she cared for. As such, she liked to stay aware of her surroundings at all times, and generally disliked when she wasn’t as sharp as she could’ve been.

Unfortunately, this day had turned out to be an extreme case of the latter. It had started out as a normal day, albeit with what was one of the worse interactions with Amity recently (although, it was less of an interaction and more of a denial of years of history together). Luz had then proposed to get the two of them to be friends again but Willow had shot that down fast (it was still _so much_ to work through). The memory lesson had proven to be an equally uncomfortable dredging up of the past to confront the present (but then again, given her dreams, what wasn’t like that these days?), and then it was lunch.

Willow hadn’t expected it to get worse at lunch. However, her senses rapidly dulled, as she found herself almost floating, pieces of herself falling out of existence. As she became less and less Willow, she became more and more angry. But this wasn’t the consuming anger in her dreams that gave her power and vision of titans; this was simple burning anger. Resentment. _Amity._

And that anger had taken the form of Amity, as well as Luz, in a hall of trees whose trunks held moments of history, of love, joy, sadness, and pain. Memories. _There_ was the “aha!” moment. Amity must’ve seen the memory of them, tried to burn the one moment she couldn’t reckon with. So, why not? As a matter of fact, why not erase it all? Leave the only legacy of the green-haired witch to be the ashes in her wake, as Willow burned and burned and burned-

But then, the impossible happened. Amity Blight, once the greatest statue in a garden of poison, crumbled in front of her, revealing the truth in a way Willow had never seen coming (“Willow, you were never too weak to be my friend. I was too weak to be yours.”), and then vowing to never let Boscha or the likes of her prey on Willow again. And through this miracle, the fire faded, and maybe, just maybe, Willow let herself believe in Amity’s promise.

And now she is whole once more, Luz is hugging her off the couch as if Willow almost died (and that probably wasn’t too far off), and Amity is lingering on the edge of it all, not even trying to hide the wistfulness in her expression as she heads to the door. Willow could let her go past the threshold now, and risk nothing. Amity’s willingness to stick to or renounce her promise was not dependent on Willow’s words, and the distance between them, although far less than mere minutes before, still seems almost insurmountable. However, the lonely look in Amity’s eyes as she waves goodbye to Luz stirs something in Willow, and maybe she was willing to admit that she cares _a bit_ about Amity’s emotions.

“I remember what you did too.” Upon hearing those words, Amity turns to face Willow, her expression brimming with apprehension, sadness, and fear, and _son of a Slitherbeast, Willow does care._

“What you did in there… I can’t say we’re friends, but it’s…” She thinks back to Amity nodding at her in the hallway, Willow nodding back, and Amity almost cracking a smile at one point.

“A start,” Willow finishes, and Amity’s eyes fill with gratitude as she leaves. A start it is.

Willow turns to Luz, and gives her a balanced mixture of withering glare and amused tilt (she can’t stay mad at Luz for too long, anyways).

“Luz, question: How did Amity happen to see the photo I hid in class?”

“You said nothing about shenanigans…” Luz retorts, expression somehow simultaneously smug and sorrowful. Willow allows her a chuckle.

“Just make sure that shenanigans doesn’t get me in life-threatening danger next time, okay?”

“Yes ma’am!”

“Also you’re paying for the next spice cream get-together.”

“Aagh!”

As Luz goes off to try to haggle shells out of Eda in advance (a tragically fruitless endeavor, if Willow says so herself), Willow hears Gus storm off outside after failing to get any information out of Hooty. How Gus got to the point of interviewing Hooty, she doesn’t know, and she has the distinct feeling that she doesn’t want to know. She remembers talking to Gus about setting up a new club back after the Doom Dump incident, perhaps she should re-encourage that again?

Her train of thought is broken off by a yawn, and a feeling of lead throughout her body. Willow supposes her body is correct; as the dreams have developed, her sleep schedule has gotten worse, and she felt very tired most of the time. The sleep spell did make her feel better, but she still felt the urge to rest for a bit. Willow lowers herself back onto the couch, at just about the same time Luz comes back to the room, her face darkened with morbid contemplation.

It’s not hard for Willow to guess why: Amity’s stark manifestation of the moment before _that_ memory is burned into her retinas. It doesn’t justify the venomous remarks and the manipulation of Willow’s insecurities that came after, but it does help to paint a bigger picture of why; and that why is horrifying.

“You’re thinking about what Amity showed us, aren’t you?” Willow's words snap Luz out of her trance.

“I… yeah. It doesn’t justify all the bullying, and I think she knows that too. But still… if that’s what her parents are, then I… I know that me and my mom don’t always see eye-to-eye, and sometimes she makes me feel pretty bad, but that? I’ve never really had to deal with ,em>that.”

Willow never had to deal with that either. She knows that her dads love her, and even if there were arguments and insecurities as the world around the family got grimmer and grimmer, she still knows that they want the best of the world for her. From what Willow had just seen of the Blights, they want the best of the world _of_ Amity, and that level of depersonalization is alien to Willow. Horrifying, especially when it happens to someone she sort of cares for.

“I should’ve seen it the second time I saw the twins,” Luz continues, her voice almost breaking. “I mean, they were kinda really mean to her the first time I saw them, but then they were so much better the second time, so I really should’ve known that the problems didn’t start with them… She’s been suffering like that for a while, hasn’t she? And if she’s gonna start standing up to those people… I’m worried about her. I don’t want her to hurt anymore.”

“If she protects us…” Willow trails off, not entirely comfortable with saying the last part out loud, but the slight upturn of Luz’s smile shows that the point is known. _We’ll protect her too._ Luz is still clearly upset, but Willow supposes that makes sense, given her feelings for the green-haired witch.

Oh right, they hadn’t talked about that yet, and given the rather depressing turn the earlier conversation had taken, Willow feels that now is a pretty good time to both lighten the mood and start grilling Luz.

“So, on a lighter note: You and Amity, huh?”

“...I don’t exactly know what you’re getting at…” Luz retorts. Willow has never exactly gotten romance; she’s had what she thinks were crushes in her early childhood, but she can’t really say for sure, and she hasn’t felt anything like that within the past few years (Willow assumes either it will happen at some point or it won’t, and she’s okay with either). Even so, she’s a romantic at heart, and has had enough experience with Gus’s puppy loves over the years to deal with this. She waggles her eyebrows wildly, and Luz’s face turns scarlet with panic.

“Wha! I don’t- I mean, what makes you- err, well, maybe, I- um, I don’t know… she has a really cute laugh. Ohmyglob, we’ve been holding hands a lot and I’vehuggedherreallycloseand _Idon’tevenknowifshelikesitand-_ ”

“From what I saw in my mind, she seemed to enjoy the attention.” Willow cuts in, with the understatement of the year. Amity was even more of a mess in there than Luz was, and Willow was frankly looking forward to the opportunity to grill her even more.

“Wh- Wh- Wh- Wait, how do you even know?”

“It’s my mind, Luz. I have a decent amount of omniscience there.” Willow pauses, a smirk playing across her face as Luz gets more and more flustered. “I’m just glad you two didn’t decide to make out in my brain,” and by Belos, the flustered panic radiating off of Luz’s face is worth all the shells in the world.

“Y’know, kid,” Eda the Owl Lady suddenly cuts in, having re-appeared in the hallway. “Most of the mail the school sends me is trash, but they did send in a flyer for Grom yesterday. If you’re not too chicken, you should ask her to that.”

“Heyyy look it’s my bedtime, sorrygalsbutIgottago, goodnight!” Luz stammers out as she almost runs to her room. Willow finds herself erupting with laughter, until that laughter is overtaken by a yawn. Right, sleep deprivation was a thing.

“Hey, can I rest here for a bit?” She asks Eda. “I’m just really tired right now. I can wake up in an hour to head home, or whenever’s convenient to you.” Eda’s expression is harder than others for Willow to read, but she knows an inquisitive eye when she sees one.

“... Sure thing, kid. I’ll wake you up in an hour.”

And so Eda leaves the room, and Willow quickly drifts off to the sound of the wind outside…

_~ Storm. Wind and cloud, thunder and lightning, titan and **power**. Those glowing jade eyes, growing dimmer as her shadow grew closer. The thunder grew louder and louder as she rose higher and higher, until it wasn’t thunder; it was a roar of pain. As she reached eye level, her jungles forming a throne of life and death, the titan’s hide contorted, shriveled. As she gazed into those eyes, now no brighter than a child’s light spell, a crackle of lightning could be heard, and a bony spike erupted from the titan’s neck. As the sky cracked open with **golden light** , the roar grew louder and louder as the spike grew larger and larger and larger- ~_

Willow awakes with a shriek, falling off the couch. Within seconds, both Eda and Luz rush back into the main room, concern written on their faces.

“ _¡Dios Mío!_ ” Luz starts. “Are you okay? What happened? Is something wrong with your memories still? Do we have to-”

“It’s okay, Luz,” Willow tries to reassure her. “Nothing’s wrong.” Luz relaxes a bit, some of the tension in her face failing. Eda’s expression is unreadable, but she doesn’t say anything.

“So how long was I out for?” Willow asks.

“Ten minutes.”

“Ah. Well, I should probably get home soon, before my dads start worrying.” Willow concludes, and then heads to the door.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Luz asks from behind her, concern dripping from her voice. Willow turns to face her.

“Yes, Luz. It was just a dream.” Admittedly, that was a half-truth, but Willow tries to be as confident as possible with it, and as she closes the door, she can see Luz is almost convinced. Almost.

Willow continues down the pathway towards Bonesburough, drifting back to the events that occurred in her mind earlier. By some miracle of life (and probably several pushes in the right direction from Luz), Amity had made what was once the impossible possible. She had apologized, shown Willow the truth of _that day_ , and had pretty much vowed to never hurt her again. Willow hasn’t forgiven Amity yet, but it’s a very impressive start, so long as she sticks with it.

Willow sees the butterfly for Skara’s birthday party drift aimlessly in the woods. It means more to her than she’s willing to admit.

“Hey, kid!” Eda’s voice rings out from the path behind her, drawing Willow out of her ruminations. The Owl Lady stops a few paces behind her, catching her breath after running half a mile to Willow, and then grabs a book out from her hair (Willow was fairly certain it acted as a pocket dimension, but valued her life enough not to test that theory). Willow really hates how she can’t read her expression.

“I’ve been reading up on Wild Magic, to try to help Luz as much as I can with her training. Most of it’s hogwash, or theoretical wackiness, but all of the useful stuff is highlighted, and I’ve written additional notes in the margins.” She closes the gap, offering the book to Willow.

“Um, thanks, I guess…” Willow trails off, taking the book. “But why? I perform magic like a normal witch.”

“From what Luz’s told me, and what I saw back there… You’re not exactly the average witch.” Willow doesn’t really like the sound of that, and Eda’s concern, now actually visible on her face, almost makes it worse.

“Look, I could be completely wrong about this, and maybe you’re not connected to wild magic at all,” Eda continues, regaining the unreadable composure of her face. “But it’s the best hunch I’ve got right now.”

Willow looks at the cover of the book, with a rather long-winded title scribbled over with various minor obscenities and witty remarks, and then back to The Owl Lady. With a quick “Thank you” that almost upturns the corners of Eda’s mouth, Willow is off again. She considers flipping through the pages, to begin to immerse herself in getting to the bottom of whatever is happening in her life right now, but so much has happened already for a day. Right now, all Willow wants is hugs from her dads, and a good night’s sleep.

And if she takes a bit of solace in not having to figure out her life right now, then so what?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this chapter was less focused than the others, it's more or less a setup for later developments. This is also as close as I get to incorporating episodes into a chapter's plot until chapter 6 (which basically _is_ the finale, or at least my version of it).
> 
> Speaking of episodes: Holy shit Understanding Willow was awesome!!! Also I'm kinda glad that they didn't go into detail about Willow's powers or their origins (although I also wish they would've, simply because we've gotten so little lore recently), as it makes me feel slightly less weird about writing what I presume to be an important plot-point on a few headcannons.
> 
> Also I've finally learned how to use italics and bold! soon after publishing this chapter, i'll be adding those to the previous chapters, as well as a few minor edits (I'm gonna add to the summaries to make the timeline a bit more clear, and I'm changing the titan's eyes to be specifically "glowing jade")
> 
> Roadmap update: I'm hoping to stick to 2 chapters per week, which would mean this fic is ideally complete right before Wing it Like Witches (which is convenient for me, as chapter 5 deals with the day-after fallout of what I presume to be in that episode). Still, at absolute minimum, I want to have this thing complete before the finale; chapter 6 focuses heavily on a possibility for the finale that I find to be highly unlikely (albeit endlessly cool).
> 
> Also, i'm hoping to get chapter 4 out before grom (solely to avoid being drowned in what I'm guessing will be endless Lumity fanfics). It will take a bit more of a metaphysical turn than the others, and you'll probably be able to guess what my headcannons that drive this fic are by the end of it.
> 
> I've been having a blast writing this story, and I hope you're enjoying reading it!


	4. The One where Willow Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps it was time to test Eda’s hunch. Willow digs around her closet for her winter coat (a puffy white parka, with green and purple flower decals), quietly sneaks out of her house to avoid waking her dads, and heads out to the Knee.

_~ Storm. The wind and rain and thunder sounded all around her, crashing upon her throne of forests. Her emerald gaze fell not on the weather around her, but on the titan before her. Eye to eye with the being, she saw as it’s jade eyes lost all glow, it’s skin began to shrivel, and bony spikes began to erupt from its hide. The titans' roars turned to gargles as the sky cracked open **golden** , and it sunk lower and lower as her **power** grew greater and greater and the thunder grew louder and louder and louder- ~_

Willow generally considered herself to be an observant person. At a certain point, she sort of had to be; her family was more prone to disease than others, so Willow had to be able to easily identify early symptoms of any sickness, or any lapse in health.

Admittedly, she didn’t have to be particularly observant to know that this dream was a problem.

Now, Willow looks around at her night-darkened room, having just awoken in a cold sweat. Fumbling for her nightstand, she grabs her scroll, and opens it to check the time: Midnight. She had gotten to bed one hour before. The dream was growing darker and darker, and costing more and more of her sleep. Willow feels lucky that tonight isn’t a school night; she doesn’t know how she’d function if it was. This past week, it was almost impossible to fall back asleep without returning to the dream, and she isn’t exactly keen on that at the moment.

Of course, staying up and sitting around in her room wouldn’t be much better, would it now? Meditating with her plants had once been helpful, but lately her mind would almost always get swarmed with thoughts during the practice, memories of green-haired witches, of reveals, apologies, and promises, of jade storms shattering into gold, of titans and bones and _power and rage-_

Inhaling deeply, Willow saunters over to her desk, and looks down at the book on wild magic the Owl Lady had given her. Frankly, Willow could’ve found most of the information Eda had highlighted on her own, but the gist was that Wild Magic comes from the bones of the Isles, and manifests itself in a myriad of ways, such as the glyphs that Luz found for her magic. While Eda had avoided much by way of assumptions, there was one theory she had noted down, that Wild Magic, like normal magic, was clearer in sites of great power (based on how Luz found it easier to find glyphs on the Knee than elsewhere). More focused. Easier to understand.

_“Look, I could be completely wrong about this, and maybe you’re not connected to wild magic at all, but it’s the best hunch I’ve got right now.”_

Perhaps it was time to test Eda’s hunch. Willow digs around her closet for her winter coat (a puffy white parka, with green and purple flower decals), quietly sneaks out of her house to avoid waking her dads, and heads out to the Knee.

If Willow was born in a world without state-of-the-art (albeit slightly dangerous) travel systems, this would not be a trek she would consider so lightly. A sizable bay sat between bonesburough and the Knee, and even once one got around it, there was still the problem of the Knee being ridiculously elevated. Fortunately, Willow lived in the modern day, and had the luxury of shoddy public transportation.

As she makes her way to the harbor, she takes out her scroll and begins absent-mindedly looking through Penstagram. On principle, one shouldn’t have their attention diverted while going through Boonesborough, but Willow has proven to be quite capable of dealing with any threat that came her way (whether or not she was comfortable with that fact), and some parts of Boonesborough were, ironically enough, safer at night. As she scrolled through the posts of her peers (Gus had recently started an account, and Boscha kept getting more and more hateful) and her recent messages (mostly Gus sending rapid-fire questions about how to repost legends from other people), her gaze came across Amity’s Blights portrait.

There was a yellow circle surrounding the portrait, indicating that the green-haired witch was still awake and active this time of night. Frankly, Willow would disapprove of such an action, if she wasn’t already doing the same thing. Still, Amity is awake, and on Penstagram, and only a couple taps of a scroll away from a conversation.

But what could there be to say? _“Hey, I know we haven’t had a genuine casual conversation in, like, a bazillion years, but why not start over text in the middle of the night?”_. By Belos, there is so much to say, and not nearly enough words to say it. Do they talk about the years of belittlement? The tumultuous events of last month? The apologies and promises? Is she willing to confide with Amity about her dreams? Is that really something she can share with anyone?

Her thought process is cut off as she arrives at the Bonesburough Boatyard (creative naming at it’s finest). Several rickety piers snaked out in no organized manner towards the bay, as well as a few beached boneships, marrow rotting away in places. Willow had always wondered what it would’ve been like to ride in one of them, but they had fallen out of fashion well before her time, with only a few left for the richest families to play with (Amity might know what it’s like, Willow thought to herself). Nevertheless, she was here for a more modern form of transport.

She approached the end of one of the more stable piers, where there was a tollbooth armed with a salivating maw. Willow drew a circle in the air above her outstretched palm, summoned 3 lapis-hued shells, tossed them into the mouth, and waited for the Soulfish to arrive.

Soulfish are unparalleled as the apex of water transportation; using insanely muscular tales and what Willow presumes must be magic, they make a couple of miles underwater fly by in a couple of minutes. They are also impressively airtight and comfortable, with their voluminous mouths covered in surprisingly dry baleen, and, conveniently enough for Witch Society, they accept shells as an alternate source of food. The tollbooths grind up the shells, the soulfish consume the paste, and the transaction is made.

The one drawback was that the Soulfish _know_. Technically, this isn’t exactly a drawback, as they simply use the knowledge of one’s soul to determine the destination, but Willow had always hated the looks in their eyes. Their pity, as they read her life story as if it was a discarded children’s book, was one of the few things in life she could say she genuinely hated. And yet, as a Soulfish rises up from the depths, water shaking off of it’s silver frill, the look in it’s dark opal eyes is one of intrigue and amusement. Willow supposes that it’s better.

The Soulfish unhinges its top jaw, letting it rise completely up, and out from the baleen of the bottom jaw emerge, to Willow’s shock, the bandits from the Doom Dump (Willow supposes that the Dump doesn’t exactly contain all the necessities of life, even for criminal parties, and it seems that the bandits went on a shoplifting spree, based on the bags in their hands). A look of surprise is shared by all three, and is then followed by a mutual wince. The lizardman rubs his right arm, causing Willow to wince even more. The three awkwardly shift around each other, trying to keep as much space between them as possible, and only when Willow is in the Soulfish’s mouth does the werecat speak up.

“This never happened, right?” 

Willow quickly nods in affirmation, and the cowed criminals are on their way, the Soulfish’s mouth closing as she shifts through the baleen and sits down on the other side. From there, she has little to do, and simply stares at Amity’s still-active portrait. Soon enough, she feels her eyes begin to droop, and the almost soothing weight of exhaustion begins to press down on Willow. Sleep is so alluring a prospect, but a fear of green and gold and the roar of thunder keep her just barely awake. 

Soon enough, the Soulfish reaches its destination, and Willow half-consciously clambers out of it’s maw, staring up at the impossibly high pillar that is the Knee. As she turns to look back at the Soulfish, she can almost see a sentence form in it’s gaze (although the idea is absolutely preposterous; the one good thing about a Soulfish’s ability to read souls is that they can’t talk): _Good luck, I hope you find what you’re looking for._ Not sparing it a second thought, Willow approaches the base of the mountain, where there is a ramshackle elevator system prepared to take her up to the top.

On the platform, there is a podium with a disembodied hand pointing down. Reluctantly grabbing the hand (always too moist for Willow’s liking), she turns it so that it’s facing up, and the platform starts elevating. As it goes higher and higher, the air gets colder and colder, the surroundings get whiter and whiter, and Willow gets sleepier and sleepier. In this half-awake state, she can barely process the emerald auroras that emerge from the night sky, and only notices that she’s reached the top of the elevator by the slight jostling of the platform.

There’s still a bit of a ways to go until Willow reaches the ruins, and so she begins on the trail system leading up. Each step feels heavier and heavier, and time and space seem to slow to a halt. At certain points, Willow’s almost certain that she’s gone off onto the wrong path. This was a mistake, she thinks. She’s out in the middle of nowhere, trying to climb a mountain in a barely-conscious state. She doesn’t even have a plan: just throwing herself out into some frigid ruins, because clearly even the most decrepit of rubble knows more than she does right now. And that’s the problem, isn’t it? She doesn’t know anything about all of this. She doesn’t know why she’s developed these powers, these dreams. She doesn’t know what do do about them, she doesn’t know what to do about Amity, _she doesn’t know what to do._

The aurora consumes the sky, with veins of gold popping in, and it begins to flow through Willow, growing brighter and brighter as she becomes sleepier and sleepier and the world decays into less and less and less-

_~Storm. A green glow surrounded her, as winds pelted her sides, and the titan looked down at her from above. The jade glow of it’s green eye filled her with rage as she met its gaze, and this rage propelled her through the sky, becoming emerald tendrils of life and death, endless jungles forming in her wake. The tendrils ate at her form, until she was one with them, a being of emerald and void and **power**. As she rose to the titan’s level, she saw the life in it’s eyes begin to dim, and by the time she had reached it, it’s skin had shriveled, and it let out a fierce gurgle as bony spike began to erupt from its body. Try as it might to stay upright, the spikes took more and more of its lifeblood, and it fell from the heavens to the sea. She almost reached out to it, but it was too far away now, and her jungle formed her throne as she watched this titan die. Even now, it’s flesh continued to shrivel, until it began to fall off completely, forming snarling maws and eldritch eyes, chunk after chunk of flesh forming a thousand demons each. Over these hordes, the sky cracked open **golden** , as a wave of thunder rolled over the masses and rose up to meet her, growing closer and closer and closer-_

_**“A regrettable end, but it laid the foundation for what we will become.”** _

_The thunder formed a voice behind her head, and she turned to face it as it took form. A towering silhouette hovered just above her kingdom of jungle. The only things that weren’t pitch black on him were his horned vulture-mask and his greatsword, both as golden as the lightning that danced across his figure, arcing off his back to form wings. As she stared at him, he stared back with a bile-green glow in his eyes. The writhing masses of demons below called out in fury, but the figure raised his sword and they were silenced._

_“Who are you?” She asked. In those bile-green eyes, she saw lifetimes flash, those of monsters and men, emperors and kings, the powerful and the rageful. The silhouette touched down upon her jungle, turning the wood into stone and metal with each step towards her._

_**“Child, I am what you were, what you are, and what you will become. In a sea of chaos, we have been chosen to rise up and bring order to our brethren in the depths.”** As the figure approached her, she tried to back up, but found herself going nowhere. Her throne of forest turned to gold around her, as veins of darkness rose through the sky, erecting a dimly lit castle._

_**“My predecessor built an empire off of the bones,”** a distant flash of emotion flowed through the eyes of the mask, resembling long-dead hatred **“and I built an empire off of his. Soon, my time will come to an end, and you shall build one off mine.”** The silhouette stood right before her now, towering over her emerald form, bile-green eyes looking into her soul expectantly._

_“I-I don’t understand...."_

_**“Child, do you not see the writing on the wall?”** Thunder rolled off or the figure’s voice, as the sky continued to darken. **“Do you not see the rotting bones, the burning rage, the indomitable power? Do you not see it within you, the power to forge a kingdom of life and death a mere thought away? The emerald burden that flows through you, and you only?”** The silhouette stopped, and outstretched an armored hand to her. **“Do you not want this? Do you not want their adoration and fear, and above all their respect? Do you not want them to see your true strength?”**_

_She thought to take his hand, or to run, or to do anything, give any answer. But she couldn’t. What could she possibly say, really?_

_And yet the hand remained, and yet the world grew darker. As the gold dimmed, and as her throne of forest turned to ash, a haunting light emerged from the castle._

_**“Oh well, I suppose.”** The golden silhouette finally spoke. **“But there is no walking away from destiny. The world is coming for you, and I, for one, hope that you are ready for it.”** and thus he was consumed by the light._

_The light took serpentine form, snaking past Willow, coiling around her jungle and barreling towards the titan below. Everything it touched turned to ash, and as it consumed the skeleton below, Willow heard thousands of screams, those of demons and family and green-haired witches and excitable twelve-year-olds and overly enthusiastic humans. Once it was done with all of them, the light took physical form, a pale worm miles in length, beady eyes bearing down on her. The worm doubled back around, rising higher and higher as it’s maw grew greater and greater and the world grew darker and darker and darker- ~_

Willow comes to in a cold sweat, finding herself in the snow capped ruins of the knee, across the pathway from a slitherbeast.

For a moment there is silence, as Willow returns to her senses. The slitherbeast simply tilts its head quizzically, sitting casually across the trail. A spike of fear runs through Willow’s brain, but she presses it down in favor of dealing with the situation rationally. Although she doesn’t know much about slitherbeasts what she has gathered from general knowledge and Luz’s retelling of her encounter with one (because of course Luz would do something to aggravate a superpredator), Willow can guess that Slitherbeasts are slow to charge, giving her time to run away or fight back.

Or would she have to do either? She was presumably out for a while, and Slitherbeasts were very opportunistic predators. If she wasn’t dead yet, it probably wasn’t interested in attacking her? Plus, this one had a nasty burn scar on it’s shoulder, indicating that it already had a few bad brushes with witches before (Willow would have to ask Luz if it was the same one she had fought, provided Willow ever felt comfortable admitting that she’d gone on a solo trip to the knee at midnight). Willow rose up from the ground, and while a low rumble came out of the Slitherbeast’s lips, it backed up a few paces.

“...Guess I’m not that appetizing of a meal, then? Does something about me scare you? Confuse you?” While, under normal circumstances, she would reason that talking to an animal about her own deep-seated insecurities and recent crises would be less than fruitless, but she is sleep-deprived and just got out of a maybe-prophetic nightmare, so there. The Slitherbeast simply continues to stare at her quizzically.

“...Yeah, me too. It’s just- It’s just so _much _. I used to be a weak nobody with only one friend, and Amity used to be a backstabbing blue-blooded witch who constantly degraded me. And now… everything’s all turned around, _Amity’s trying to be a better person _, I’m getting more friends, and on top of all of that, I’m getting visions of what I presume must be the most powerful entities in the Isles telling me to use this out-of-control power I have to rule everything? On top of all the other stuff I saw?” She sinks down to her knees, one hand running through her hair. “It’s just… too much. It’s too much. I’m only 14. What do I do?”____

____The Slitherbeast doesn’t answer, tenderly licking its burn, sniffing out what she presumes is more alluring prey than her, and marches off onto it’s path. Willow supposes that there would be symbolic meaning in that, if someone was obsessed with literature enough to find it (perhaps Luz would, or even Amity)._ _ _ _

____Willow returns to her feet, taking in her surroundings again. At this point, the only rational action is to head home. Returning to the trail, she weaves her way out of the ruins, turning on her scroll once the elevator is in sight. Only half an hour has passed, but that surprise pales in comparison to what she sees on Penstagram._ _ _ _

_____Amity Blight:_ _ _ _ _

_____Hey._ _ _ _ _

_____Sorry if I’m bothering you, but I’m awake and I see that you’re awake too, so I figured I’d text you._ _ _ _ _

_____Oh Belos, you’re probably asleep now, sorry._ _ _ _ _

_____This was a mistake._ _ _ _ _

_____Not because of anything you did, just_ _ _ _ _

_____Ugh, I’m so dumb._ _ _ _ _

_____Sorry again._ _ _ _ _

____Willow could wait until tomorrow to deal with it. Really, she could even leave it at that, and things wouldn’t really change for the worse. But she really couldn’t not deal with it, as Amity was still active on Penstagram, and some overwhelming force is driving Willow to take action in the now (which Luz would later identify as “being a good person who cares about people”). There is no walking away from destiny, after all._ _ _ _

_____Willow Park:_ _ _ _ _

_____Hey_ _ _ _ _

_____Having trouble going to sleep?_ _ _ _ _

____There is a pause as Amity types her response._ _ _ _

_____AB:_ _ _ _ _

_____Yeah._ _ _ _ _

_____It’s just one of those nights._ _ _ _ _

____Willow’s mind flashes back to the stark silhouettes of Amity’s parents, and the claustrophobic walls placed around the memory projection of Amity from her retelling of that night._ _ _ _

_____WP:_ _ _ _ _

_____Yeah, I suppose it is_ _ _ _ _

_____AB:_ _ _ _ _

_____Do you have any good ways to deal with it?_ _ _ _ _

_____The insomnia, I mean._ _ _ _ _

_____Unless you’re up for a different reason._ _ _ _ _

____Willow smiles a bit at that. She doesn't exactly feel comfortable telling Amity about the dream yet (she’s still not comfortable reminding herself), but perhaps she can talk about a few details._ _ _ _

_____WP:_ _ _ _ _

_____I don’t exactly have insomnia_ _ _ _ _

_____But I recently found hiking helps a bit_ _ _ _ _

____Their conversation lasts for a while, gradually moving into more casual subjects (and while Willow wants more than many things to prod Amity about her more-than obvious crush on a certain human, that can wait), and by the time Willow get’s back home, she feels slightly more energized (still not energized enough to not fall asleep immediately)._ _ _ _

____The storm returns in her dream, but it is far off for the moment. She’ll savor the calm, while it lasts._ _ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I've got bad news: I'm more or less discontinuing this work.
> 
> It's not because I've got writer's block, or that I dislike this work (I love it). School's rapidly approaching, and as is the case for many, I've got loads of projects that I need to deal with. Roots of the Isles is a time sensitive project (I had hoped to get chapters out at least before the finale) and each chapter takes a large amount of time to write. My struggle with balancing my schoolwork with this chapter is proof that this isn't sustainable. I could continue to spread out my time working on this project, but that would result in the final chapter clocking in well after the finale, and my final chapter largely depends on my predictions for the finale (and I'm not entirely comfortable going into au territory just yet).
> 
> This doesn't mean that I'm done writing fanfiction as a whole. As a matter of fact, I have a few Amity fanfic and Belos fanfic ideas that I'd like to write in the future, as those are less massive and time consuming as this venture was.
> 
> Again, sorry for dashing anyone's hopes. If y'all want some explanations as to the ideas/headcannons that motivated this work, or outlines for the last two chapters, I'd be more than willing to oblige in the comments section.
> 
> Thank you all for reading, and I hope to be back soon.
> 
> P.S: to anyone who deals with insomnia, I found that a good strategy is to disconnect from all screens about a half-hour (give-or-take) before you go to bed, and do some sort of thought-focusing activity (read a book, play cards) while drinking a nighttime tea (my preference is chamomile). Once you'e in bed, try not to worry too much about what you can do to make yourself fall asleep, just let your mind take you where it wants to go.


End file.
